The Crown of Wild Olive
and blood cannot be weighed, enforced by "Portia"[50] ("Portion"), the
type of divine Fortune, found, not in gold, nor in silver, but in lead,
that is to say, in endurance and patience, not in splendour; and finally
taught by her lips also, declaring, instead of the law and quality of
"merces," the greater law and quality of mercy, which is not strained,
but drops as the rain, blessing him that gives and him that takes. And
observe that this "mercy" is not the mean "Misericordia," but the mighty
"Gratia," answered by Gratitude, (observe Shylock's leaning on the, to
him detestable, word, _gratis_, and compare the relations of Grace to
Equity given in the second chapter of the second book of the
_Memorabilia_;) that is to say, it is the gracious or loving, instead of
the strained, or competing manner, of doing things, answered, not only
with "merces" or pay, but with "merci" or thanks. And this is indeed the
meaning of the great benediction "Grace, mercy, and peace," for there
can be no peace without grace, (not even by help of rifled cannon), nor
even without triplicity of graciousness, for the Greeks, who began but
with one Grace, had to open their scheme into three before they had
done.
101. With the usual tendency of long repeated thought, to take the
surface for the deep, we have conceived these goddesses as if they only
gave loveliness to gesture; whereas their true function is to give
graciousness to deed, the other loveliness arising naturally out of
that. In which function Charis becomes Charitas;[51] and has a name and
praise even greater than that of Faith or Truth, for these may be
maintained sullenly and proudly; but Charis is in her countenance always
gladdening (Aglaia), and in her service instant and humble; and the true
wife of Vulcan, or Labour. And it is not until her sincerity of function
is lost, and her mere beauty contemplated instead of her patience, that
she is born again of the foam flake, and becomes Aphrodite; and it is
then only that she becomes capable of joining herself to war and to the
enmities of men, instead of to labour and their services. Therefore the
fable of Mars and Venus is chosen by Homer, picturing himself as
Demodocus, to sing at the games in the court of Alcinous. Phaeacia is the
Homeric island of Atlantis; an image of noble and wise government,
concealed, (how slightly!) merely by the change of a short vowel for a
long one in the name of its queen; yet misunderstood by all later
writers, (even by Horace, in his "pinguis, Phaeaxque"). That fable
expresses the perpetual error of men in thinking that grace and dignity
can only be reached by the soldier, and never by the artisan; so that
commerce and the useful arts have had the honour and beauty taken away,
and only the Fraud and Pain left to them, with the lucre. Which is,
indeed, one great reason of the continual blundering about the offices
of government with respect to commerce. The higher classes are ashamed
to employ themselves in it; and though ready enough to fight for (or
occasionally against) the people,--to preach to them,--or judge them,
will not break bread for them; the refined upper servant who has
willingly looked after the burnishing of the armoury and ordering of the
library, not liking to set foot in the larder.
102. Farther still. As Charis becomes Charitas on the one side, she
becomes--better still--Chara, Joy, on the other; or rather this is her
very mother's milk and the beauty of her childhood; for God brings no
enduring Love, nor any other good, out of pain; nor out of contention;
but out of joy and harmony. And in this sense, human and divine, music
and gladness, and the measures of both, come into her name; and Cher
becomes full-vowelled Cheer, and Cheerful; and Chara opens into Choir
and Choral.[52]
103. And lastly. As Grace passes into Freedom of action, Charis becomes
Eleutheria, or Liberality; a form of liberty quite curiously and
intensely different from the thing usually understood by "Liberty" in
modern language: indeed, much more like what some people would call
slavery: for a Greek always understood, primarily, by liberty,
deliverance from the law of his own passions (or from what the Christian
writers call bondage of corruption), and this a complete liberty: not
being merely safe from the Siren, but also unbound from the mast, and
not having to resist the passion, but making it fawn upon, and follow
him--(this may be again partly the meaning of the fawning beasts about
the Circean cave; so, again, George Herbert--
Correct thy passion's spite,
Then may the beasts draw thee to happy light)--
And it is only in such generosity that any man becomes capable of so
governing others as to take true part in any system of national economy.
Nor is there any other eternal distinction between the upper and lower
classes than this form of liberty, Eleutheria, or benignity, in the one,
and its opposite of slavery, Douleia, or malignity, in the other; the
separation of these two orders of men, and the firm government of the
lower by the higher, being the first conditions of possible wealth and
economy in any state,--the Gods giving it no greater gift than the power
to discern its true freemen, and "malignum spernere vulgus."
104. While I have traced the finer and higher laws of this matter for
those whom they concern, I have also to note the material law--vulgarly
expressed in the proverb, "Honesty is the best policy." That proverb is
indeed wholly inapplicable to matters of private interest. It is not
true that honesty, as far as material gain is concerned, profits
individuals. A clever and cruel knave will in a mixed society always be
richer than an honest person can be. But Honesty is the best "policy,"
if policy mean practice of State. For fraud gains nothing in a State. It
only enables the knaves in it to live at the expense of honest people;
while there is for every act of fraud, however small, a loss of wealth
to the community. Whatever the fraudulent person gains, some other
person loses, as fraud produces nothing; and there is, _besides_, the
loss of the time and thought spent in accomplishing the fraud, and of
the strength otherwise obtainable by mutual help (not to speak of the
fevers of anxiety and jealousy in the blood, which are a heavy physical
loss, as I will show in due time). Practically, when the nation is
deeply corrupt cheat answers to cheat; every one is in turn imposed
upon, and there is to the body politic the dead loss of the ingenuity,
together with the incalculable mischief of the injury to each defrauded
person, producing collateral effect unexpectedly. My neighbour sells me
bad meat: I sell him in return flawed iron. We neither of us get one
atom of pecuniary advantage on the whole transaction, but we both suffer
unexpected inconvenience; my men get scurvy, and his cattle-truck runs
off the rails.
105. The examination of this form of Charis must, therefore, lead us
into the discussion of the principles of government in general, and
especially of that of the poor by the rich, discovering how the
Graciousness joined with the Greatness, or Love with Majestas, is the
true Dei Gratia, or Divine Right, of every form and manner of King; _i.
e._, specifically, of the thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, and
powers of the earth:--of the thrones, stable, or "ruling," literally
right-doing powers ("rex eris, recte si facies"):--of the
dominations--lordly, edifying, dominant and harmonious powers; chiefly
domestic, over the "built thing," domus, or house; and inherently
twofold, Dominus and Domina; Lord and Lady:--of the Princedoms,
pre-eminent, incipient, creative, and demonstrative powers; thus poetic
and mercantile, in the "princeps carmen deduxisse" and the
merchant-prince:--of the Virtues or Courages; militant, guiding, or
Ducal powers:--and finally of the Strengths, or Forces pure; magistral
powers, of the More over the less, and the forceful and free over the
weak and servile elements of life.
Subject enough for the next paper, involving "economical" principles of
some importance, of which, for theme, here is a sentence, which I do not
care to translate, for it would sound harsh in English,[53] though,
truly, it is one of the tenderest ever uttered by man; which may be
meditated over, or rather _through_, in the meanwhile, by any one who
will take the pains:--
[Greek: Ar oun, hosper Hippos to anepistemoni men encheirounti de
chresthai zemia estin, houto kai adelphos, otan tis auto me epistamenos
encheir chresthai, zemia esti];
FOOTNOTES:
[44] I have repeated the substance of this and the next paragraph so
often since, that I am ashamed and weary. The thing is too true, and too
simple, it seems, for anybody ever to believe. Meantime, the theories of
"international values," as explained by Modern Political Economy, have
brought about last year's pillage of France by Germany, and the
affectionate relations now existing in consequence between the
inhabitants of the right and left banks of the Rhine.
[45] I wish some one would examine and publish accurately the late
dealings of the Governors of the Cape with the Caffirs.
[46] By "pay," I mean wages for labour or skill; by "profit," gain
dependent on the state of the market.
[47] Since I wrote this, I have worked out the question of interest of
money, which always, until lately, had embarrassed and defeated me; and
I find that the payment of interest of any amount whatever is real
"usury," and entirely unjustifiable. I was shown this chiefly by the
pamphlets issued by Mr. W. C. Sillar, though I greatly regret the
impatience which causes Mr. Sillar to regard usury as the radical crime
in political economy. There are others worse, that act with it.
[48] Hence Dante's companionship of Cahors, _Inf._, canto xi., supported
by the view taken of the matter throughout the middle ages, in common
with the Greeks.
[49] I do not wonder when I re-read this, that people talk about my
"sentiment." But there is no sentiment whatever in the matter. It is a
hard and bare commercial fact, that if two people deal together who
don't try to cheat each other, they will in a given time, make more
money out of each other than if they do. See Sec. 104.
[50] Shakspeare would certainly never have chosen this name had he been
forced to retain the Roman spelling. Like Perdita, "lost lady," or
Cordelia, "heart-lady," Portia is "fortune" lady. The two great relative
groups of words, Fortuna, fero, and fors--Portio, porto, and pars (with
the lateral branch, op-portune, im-portune, opportunity, &c.), are of
deep and intricate significance; their various senses of bringing,
abstracting, and sustaining being all centralized by the wheel (which
bears and moves at once), or still better, the ball (spera) of
Fortune,--"Volve sua spera, e beata si gode:" the motive power of this
wheel distinguishing its goddess from the fixed majesty of Necessitas
with her iron nails; or [Greek: ananke], with her pillar of fire and
iridescent orbits, _fixed_ at the centre. Portus and porta, and gate in
its connexion with gain, form another interesting branch group; and
Mors, the concentration of delaying, is always to be remembered with
Fors, the concentration of bringing and bearing, passing on into Fortis
and Fortitude.
[This note is literally a mere memorandum for the future work which I am
now completing in _Fors Clavigera_; it was printed partly in vanity, but
also with real desire to get people to share the interest I found in the
careful study of the leading words in noble languages. Compare the next
note.]
[51] As Charis becomes Charitas, the word "Cher," or "Dear," passes from
Shylock's sense of it (to buy cheap and sell dear) into Antonio's sense